this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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Fuck AI
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Multi billion dollar AI brought down by interference from grandma's 1970's microwave oven.
Story a tech told me at the cable ISP we worked for way back:
Every night several blocks would lose internet, all around the same time. They were rolling trucks all over the place, totally stumped.
Forget how they found her, but a little old lady was plugging her crappy TV in at night and it was backfeeding garbage into the line, taking out everyone downstream.
Another time by best friend was driving with his signal leakage meter resting on the dash. Pulled past a house and it went fucking nuts. He backtracked, found the place and knocked on the door. The guy was skeptical at first, but he was in a cable van after all. "You been having internet issues?" "YES! How did you know?! Your techs can't figure it out!"
One time we had a wireless interference issue that stumped us for months, until we figured out that it was the AC.
OK, that seems normal enough right? EMF interference caused by the HVAC system. Only it wasn't EMF. Wasn't backfeed or improper grounding either. Wasn't anything electrical. It was the positive pressure.
The AC, when it ran, was causing a change in the air pressure in the building that was degrading signal quality. For the life of me I do not understand the physics of this but I am assured by experts that it is a very real thing.
Basically, wireless is black magic, and troubleshooting wireless sits slightly above "Read the necronomicon" in terms of sanity damage.
Well, it gave a wrong answer, which is not possible with just a Wi-Fi issue.